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New York City Taking First Steps Against Air BnB Members

Just saw on the news that the city attorney has obtained a subpoena against Air BnB requiring them to provide the names and addresses of all residents/landlords in New York City who are offering to rent their apartments through the service, with the goal of stopping rental and returning these residences (believed to be in the thousands) to the supply available for locals renting long term.

In a press conference several important officials including an influential congressman and the Manhattan Borough President cited the increasing number of complaints from legitimate local residents and concerns that Air BnB is taking out of circulation thousands of apartments that should be available for long-term rent by locals (a city policy aimed at keeping middle and working class people in the city with strict rent regulations).

An Air BnB spokesperson say the subpoena is too broad but it is not clear if they will elect to comply or to fight it in court (possibly increasing the chances of similar legal action in other places).

See how well Air BnB's "negotiations on the city laws" are going?

So for any tourists seeking to rent an apartment in Manhattan - watch the progress of this situation. The results and timing are unsure - but obviously the city's goal is to scare the apartment owners/residents out of participation with the threat of large fines - rather than actually having to prosecute all of them. But it appears they are ready to start broad-based prosecutions from the offering end rather than just responding to individual situations based on actual tenant complaints.

<<How do they figure that Air BnB is taking anything "out of circulation?">>

Unless there are credible allegations that people are buying NYC apartments to rent them illegally under airbnb schemes (and there are not), then no one is taking them out of circulation. That whole concept is nonsense. The supply of "affordable" housing in NYC is designed to be kept low because rent restriction schemes and rent control both repress supply, but anyone who has taken an introductory econ class knows that.

One is landlords wanting more than the rent regulations allow them to charge for a monthly rental - so when the apartment becomes vacant they put it up for daily or weekly rental. Not just illegal but unfair, since many of these apartments were built or rebuilt with tax concessions from the city on the basis that the apartments would remain rent stabilized.

The other problem is a tenant with a rent stabilized apartment who moves out of the city but keeps the apartment at a rent stabilized rate (not allowed) and then renting it out for a profit at a nightly or weekly rate.

Both of these are pulling apartments from the legitimate local long-term rental market. And both should be found and forced to rent the apartment long-term (landlord) or give it up (absent tenant).

As for y our theory about keeping the supply of apartments low - then why is the city offering such generous tax benefits to landlords building or rehabbing middle or working class housing.

The supply of "affordable" housing in NYC is designed to be kept low because rent restriction schemes and rent control both repress supply, but anyone who has taken an introductory econ class knows that.

A huge +1.

I can't think of a more obvious and disingenuous ploy to pander to voters than cracking down on a non-existent problem like AirBnB. The limited supply and high prices of Manhattan real estate have absolutely nothing to do with rental availability or prices.

then why is the city offering such generous tax benefits to landlords building or rehabbing middle or working class housing.

Because the rent controls and zoning restrictions have had such a negative impact on supply and prices and this is their ham-handed way to "combat" the problem without upsetting the vested interests they have created via policy.

Sorry - but NYC has had rent control since WW II due at that time to a severe housing shortage and the attempts by landlords to profiteer by raising rents by huge amounts. In 1969, I believe, it was changed to rent stabilization (for modest apartments, less than $2k per month) landlords rent increases are mandated by law based on the number of years of the lease, assuming that they choose to accept tax reductions from the city. If they don't take these tax reductions, or if the apartment rises above $2K per month, they are free to charge what the market will bear.

Landlords typically flout these laws (I had to take one to court since he refused to charge me the legal rent - and ended up with 7 months living there rent free).

All along this has been an attempt to encourage landlords to build affordable housing in the city - rather than just luxury highrises that the average person can't afford to live in.

And for the information of everyone here we live in a middle class co-op - 6 story redbrick with no doorman or concierge or gym or foofy anything - except the usual benefits of a prewar building (large rooms, lots of closets, high ceilings, crown molding and original - from 1925 - parquet floors).

And we are the common man. Not the poor man - but the common one - and do care about others in the community and making sure there is as much affordable housing as possible for local residents - and not illegal profits for landlords and absentee renters. If one wants to build a hotel one is perfectly free to do so. Or luxury housing. But not to take city tax abatements designed to provide housing to the average person and then flout the law to obtain excessive and illegal profits.

I understand that most places don;t have these laws. And some people might not understand them. But this is how it's supposed to work. And I'm in favor of whatever the city can do to bring these apartments back into the long-term rental market.

All along this has been an attempt to encourage landlords to build affordable housing in the city - rather than just luxury highrises that the average person can't afford to live in.

It does nothing of the sort. It may have been an "attempt", but it failed miserably and only the willfully blind would support its continued existence.

But this is how it's supposed to work.

Well over 90% of economists would tell you that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing. Most also agree that it disproportionately benefits the well-off and hurts the poor.

If NYC wants more supply, they need to get rid of rent control.

And I'm in favor of whatever the city can do to bring these apartments back into the long-term rental market.

In favor of everything except the most efficient and realistic solution.

If the concern is with retaining affordable housing for the poor (I don't think it is), then it would be far preferable to allow rents to fluctuate freely and offer cash subsidies to low-income households.

<<All along this has been an attempt to encourage landlords to build affordable housing in the city - rather than just luxury highrises that the average person can't afford to live in.>>

Yeah, that's ridiculous both in concept and that you have bought into the spiel. The fact is that price controls limit supply. It is simple fact, from Soviet Russia to Venezuela to the early 1970s in the US and the 1980s in the UK. And then the economies of the US and UK grew exponentially when the controls were lifted. Meanwhile, in NYC, affordable housing stocks are held by the paradigm millionaire in rent controlled housing.

I do not claim to be an expert on the latest terms for stabilized apartments - since it has been almost 20 years since I rented.

But - there are numerous different views of how an economy works. And allowing landlords to charge whatever they please for apartments in Manhattan (for which they have accepted city tax abatements to stabilize the rents) would result in the remaining middle class (not poor, since there are numerous city-subsidized low-income city housing projects in Manhattan) being driven out of the City and into far suburbs.

This is against the policy of the government - which has a perfectly legitimate interest in allowing middle class people to continue to live in Manhattan.

Please explain to me exactly how allowing landlords to charge whatever they want for their apartments (after they have repaid the tax abatements they accepted from the city) will bring more affordable apartments onto the market - as opposed to more extremely expensive luxury housing. Some people don;t seem to understand that in NY there is a huge artificial market for high priced housing (from people associated with UN embassies, from consulates, from huge corporations and by the uber wealthy from around the world who have been snapping up high end property ever since the dollar sank versus the euro and the pound.)

Please explain to me exactly why removing stabilization would cause landlords to build new affordable housing in Manhattan. (We can already see that they are willing to flout the laws for higher profits. How is a middle class couple supposed to pay $4500 per month for a small one bedroom? And when they can't afford that - where are they supposed to move to?)

I think the misundertanding here is that this law is not just economic policy - it is also social policy. (Yes, in New York we have social policies.) We have goals for the city that are not aimed just at making money.

Even our Republicans. Michel Bloomberg has just spent $50 million of his own money to fund efforts to loosen the NRA's stranglehold on Congress and state legislatures - and finally succeed in passing some rational gun control laws.

<<I think the misundertanding here is that this law is not just economic policy - it is also social policy.>>

No, the law is PRIMARILY social policy. But who is going to fund the utopia the law endeavors (and fails) to design - the government? No, that would mean even more taxes in the most-taxed city in the country. Then that cost must be passed along, and it's passed along to the people who can "afford" apartments in NYC that are not effectively subsidized through legal machinations.

<<Some people don;t seem to understand that in NY there is a huge artificial market for high priced housing (from people associated with UN embassies, from consulates, from huge corporations and by the uber wealthy from around the world who have been snapping up high end property ever since the dollar sank versus the euro and the pound.)>>

That artificial market is created by NYC's own laws, which create a disparity. First, NY makes being a landlord a crap business unless you have high-rent tenants who pay, and actually pay, above-market prices. It's nigh impossible to boot a tenant in NYC unless the tenant is caught in the Edwin Edwards conundrum of being found in bed with a dead girl or a live boy (or the inverse: a live girl or a dead boy).

Second, in NYC there is no true free market, there are the stabilized apartments that are sub-market (well over 50% of NYC stock), the rent control that are sub-sub-sub-sub-submarket (only about 2%), and the uncontrolled/unstabilized apartments, which are far more expensive than they would be but for the rent stabilization and rent control policies. Again, this is basic economics. To be able to afford to provide rent stabilized and RC apartments, the landlord must recoup its lost money from someone else, thus the new lawyers and b-schoolers and doctors with 120K+ in debt who move into NYC now with 250K/year income (which gets whacked by NYC taxes) are subsidizing folks who have rented for years at stabilization rates and saved a boatload. In another area of the economy, this is Social Security.

You also do not understand that merely removing rent stabilization will not cause more rent stock to be constructed. That's just one aspect of NYC's perverse rental market. In addition, there are restrictive zoning provisions, building requirements (e.g., parking requirements in buildings above 96th street but not below), and the aforementioned no-booting-the-tenants lean in NY landlord-tenant law that makes property owners a suspect class (which is Leninist), as shown by your own posts.

As for the Second Amendment issues, that's just daft. NYC gun control laws didn't make the city safe - it had the same restrictive gun control laws in the 1980s when the murder rate was 5x higher or more. Look at Detroit and Chicago and Camden, each of which has stricter gun control laws than Dallas or Nashville, and a TON more crime. Ray Kelly, Bill Bratton, Howard Safir, Rudy Giuliani and good police work made the City safe. Bloomberg's anti-gun crusade did not and will not.

But the alternative to rent control has not been found. No one seems to explain why the free market will provide affordable housing that it was not providing before rent control and rent stabilization were instituted. Did the landlords acquire a social conscience in the meantime?

Give subsidies to the poor. Much simpler and it actually helps the poor. Rent control doesn't.

No one seems to explain why the free market will provide affordable housing that it was not providing before rent control and rent stabilization were instituted.

Because it will increase investment in rental housing (assuming that other restrictions, such as zoning, allow it) depressing prices generally.

Did the landlords acquire a social conscience in the meantime?

I was unaware that all landlords were ogres.

The people that like rent control are middle to upper income white people with good credit. They pretend to give a toss about poor people because they think it makes them look better (it doesn't - it makes them look disingenuous). If they actually cared, they'd bother to think about the issue and would realize how disastrous rent control is. It doesn't work in theory and it doesn't work in practice.

So why did that not solve the problem before rent control were instituted?

It actually largely did and the proportion of housing in Manhattan that is rented has plummeted since rent control was instituted. What has been built since has been luxury units, and there has been a statistically significant increase in dilapidation for affordable housing.

The problem at the time it was instituted was a short-term spike in demand. New housing stock isn't built overnight. Had NY left well enough alone and ended rent control after the immediate crisis ended, we'd be better off and Manhattan wouldn't be populated by so many yuppies.

Ask yourself this. Why has all the major development in places like Williamsburg been at the high end and why has so much of it been condos?

It actually largely did and the proportion of housing in Manhattan that is rented has plummeted since rent control was instituted.
Not if you read about the massive Title I projects carried out by Robert Moses (however skewered and corrupt according to Robert Caro's The Power Broker).

And hot off the press: The local TV news in SF had a piece last night on eviction lawyers who buy multi-unit properties with long-term lower income residents, evict them and then sell them as TICs (Tenancy In Common). This under the Ellis Act which eliminated rent control and its attendant protection. Even our business oriented mayor recognizes the problem of unaffordable housing for the middle class. Whether he will do anything about it is another question. I think that any large city with its multiple housing requirements must control housing prices one way or another.

As for giving lower income people subsidies for housing: those who believe in the free market for housing are likely to be those who do not believe in free handouts to subsidize rent payments.

The purpose of this forum is to discuss travel, so AirBnB is certainly an acceptable topic, as would be developments regarding its relative availability and advisability in NYC or other destinations.

But this isn't the place to have a rancorous debate about the relative merits of rent control. That's for another forum (and not on Fodors.com). I would hate to see the moderators delete this forum, so let's get back on topic.

One of the problems that I can see with AirB&B is that it allows for a residential, single family zoned area to become a "business-hotel-transient-rental area" and disrupts the intended zoning of an area.

I'm sorry I ever started on the whole issue of rent stabilization and NYC housing policy - about which people have many different views. And I don't want to get into further details about some statements here that are inaccurate or ingenuous.

If we stick to the travel issue - the main point is that the City of New York is now taking active steps to locate those people who are renting illegally through Air BnB with the intention of putting a stop to it.

Travelers who are not familiar with the situation need to know about this, since something they rent now may well be off the illegal sublet market by the time they get to NYC. And they need to consider this risk - and follow what is happening - if they elect not to stay in the many thousands of hotels, B&Bs (legal ones) and hostels.

That is an interesting article, ekscrunchy. Guy doesn't seem like much of a criminal to me. I suspect that the push by local politicians to make these illegal is much more related to "campaign donations" from the NYC hotel lobby than their analysis of Airbnb's impact on the local rental market. I mean, think about it, the OP said these units number "in the thousands". That's a drop in the bucket for a city like New York, which has over 3.4 million housing units, of which about 64% are rentals. That's somewhere around 2.2 million rental units in New York. If Airbnb has, let's say, 2,500 housing units registered, that's a little over 1/10 of 1% of the rental market.

There is no way this has a measurable impact on housing supply or affordability. And to criminalize the guy represented in that article, and what he is doing, makes little sense. It's no surprise that Airbnb's "negotiations on city laws" are not going so well - they're very likely out-gunned.

The article on the AirBnB participant was very interesting, and he's not breaking the law at all. He is the precise kind of person who is allowed to rent out a room on AirBnB. He resides in the apartment and rents out a spare room, and presumably his building allows it. That's the one circumstance where AirBnB is completely and totally legal in NYC.

smetz1 - Yes. Unless it's a co-op. If the owner or resident is in residence it at least cuts down on the people who will be living in your building who are not overseen by anyone and who have much less of a chance of trashing the place.

I suspect that a lot of those who see no problem with AirB&B in NYC don't live in apartment houses and don't have the problem of transients coming and going all the time, living in your building and never knowing who they are. I know I wouldn't like it.

kenav - thanks for the clarification. I agree about the impact on the residents of a building in which a unit is, effectively, used as a hotel room. My only point was that impact on housing supply or affordability in the city is most likely negligible. But wouldn't apartment buildings or co-ops already have rules that prevent that type of use?

smetz1 - Yes, buildings would have rules like that. However, people flaunt rules!! (What a surprise.) It's then hard to get the owners or tenants out. Months and months of legal notices and then possibly bringing them to court and the expense of all that. It's a royal pain in the you know what.

We had an elderly man who was a Vet. He sat in the lobby in his wheelchair for hours a day (although there is a House Rule of not using the Lobby as a loitering place). He had an aid who would actually come out to him with a cup and he would pee in it! Yes! In the middle of the Lobby. But getting him out of the apt. since he was a veteran was near impossible. He's dead now. BTW - He was a mean, nasty guy to boot.

A bit more: Depending on the co-op or condo or rental apt. rules against using the apt. as an investment, many mortgages and acceptances of tenants/owners by landlords or Co-op Boards, are based on the fact that you must use the apt. as your main residence. If there are those who use it as an investment then they are breaking their mortgage agreements, etc. But, again, the Co-op Board must then go through legal proceedings to stop this. SO, it's not just saying "No, you can't do this."

And so the transient travelers keep coming through much to the consternation of the legal tenants of the building. And, yes, it keeps the apt. off the grid for people who actually want to live in NYC.

Our co-op had an owner who moved to CA but kept her apartment and sublet (not daily or weekly - but short-term and without any review or approval of the tenants for finances and suitability by the Management or the board). As a result we mad the sublet rules more stringent (an owner can sublet for up to one year but then cannot sublet again for another 5 years - and the subletters have to go through a complete financial review by the management company and interviews with the co-ops tenant committee).

In this case the woman refused to follow the rules and the process of getting her evicted was becoming onerous and expensive. So we took the simple route of changing the locks on her apartment as well as the security fobs for the lobby entrance doors when the current subletters moved out. So - her next set of "subletters" could not get into the apartment. At that point she decided to see rather than fight the case in court. (We had notified her this would happen but she ignored all communications from the board and managing agents.)

(Her first set of subletters - for more than 2 years - were fine but then there were two sets of short-term tenants who caused a variety of problems in the building including loud music at all hours, not allowing access for pest control treatments and strewing trash and garbage in public areas - and apparent drug use.)

A lot of Air BnB rentals are just for a room for a couple of nights in someone's home while the owners live there too. I don't see interfering with that, but I guess it is different if someone is renting out housing that is government subsidized or something. New York government is too into the residents business, like that law against the size of a soft drink you can buy! I like to think people can make most decisions on their own.

You do not have life next to a revolving door of guests. Airbnb does not screen it guests for anything but the ability to pay. Nor do the apartment owners. It has nothing to with NYC prying into the lives of others but everything about protecting the lives and the tenet rights of its citizens.

We are now going to DC with another couple next April or May for 4 days. We want to stay in the Penn Quarter for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is one member easily tires and most sights we want to see are in that area, so a place nearby is important. Airbnb has a limited selection, has anyone had luck with other services?

In NYC legitimate tenants - either in co-ops, condos or rental buildings have a right to basic safety and security in their buildings.

Allowing renters to sublet apartments (against their lease with the landlord) or even to rent out individual rooms brings complete strangers into the buildings - with keys or entrance fobs that the legitimate owners/renters may never recover. This illegal subletting puts everyone living in the building at potential risk - which is why most NYers hate htis idea. It is promoted by Air BnB and relatively few tenants who cannot actually afford their apts (or worse sponsors who cannot sell co-ops or rent new apts and illegally rent the apts out short-term.)

There are many hotels available in NYC a wide range of prices - renting apts illegally is simply not necessary.

Sorry - but the safety and security of local residents trumps the desire of tourists for uber cheap housing.

And if one thinks there are too many laws in NYC (these providing for safety of hotel guests with fire laws and others preventing carrying of fire arms) one is free not to visit the city.

"Sorry - but the safety and security of local residents trumps the desire of tourists for uber cheap housing.

And if one thinks there are too many laws in NYC (these providing for safety of hotel guests with fire laws and others preventing carrying of fire arms) one is free not to visit the city."

A perfectly reasonable argument, which IMDonehere apparently agrees with. But if you then turn around and seek to rent private apartments for vacations in other cities - legal or not - you're nothing more than a hypocrite.

But it seems reasonable that people who would argue that it's an egregious imposition on permanent residents to rent a vacation apartment in NYC, so egregious in fact that the vacationers should be charged with a crime, should at least be willing to impose the same restriction on themselves when visiting other cities in the US or in Europe.

No one is charging the vacationers with the crime. The crime - and fines - are for those who are renting out illegally.

And why should builders/landlords - who accepted city tax rebates when putting up the building on the basis of keeping apartments for long-term rent regulated tenants - be allowed to instead sublet them illegally and make huge profits to which they are not entitled? I guarantee you they have no intention of repaying the city for all of those tax rebates they accepted out of the hands of the public.

Again, all of your arguments are perfectly reasonable & I'm not suggesting otherwise. But I've noticed, when researching information for Europe travel, that you frequently have helpful advice to those searching for apartments in Paris or Rome. If your advice is based on actual experience, and one would hope that it is, then is it not hypocritical to argue that it's wrong to rent an apartment in NYC while doing the same thing in other cities? At least IMDonehere owns up to it.

Each municipality has the right to make laws based on local conditions and the desires/needs of its citizens. The mayor of NYC is now in the process of organizing a program to increase low/moderate income housing in NYC - by 80,000 units. When so many more are needed seeing any occupied by tourists makes no sense. Perhaps these other cities don;t have such huge shortages - or a commitment to lower cost housing.

I feel uncomfortable padding through the lobby and the halls where permanent tenants live. I am just a visitor and I hope to conduct myself in a manner that is not intrusive or bothersome.

I grew up in an apartment house and now live in a huge complex in Manhattan. And there are, of course, idiots who are permanent residents, but now management has an agreement with a local university and although most of them of grad students half have the manners of third graders.

The first time I rented an apartment for a vacation was in Barcelona where there was a shared courtyard. That sounds quaint until one husband got home every night at 3 AM drunk and his wife let him her dissatisfaction.

If this was the extent of your arguments on the subject, then you'd have a leg to stand on. But you posted the following:

"Allowing renters to sublet apartments (against their lease with the landlord) or even to rent out individual rooms brings complete strangers into the buildings - with keys or entrance fobs that the legitimate owners/renters may never recover."

Doesn't this precisely describe what you do when you rent an apartment in Paris or Rome?

"This illegal subletting puts everyone living in the building at potential risk - which is why most NYers hate htis idea. It is promoted by Air BnB and relatively few tenants who cannot actually afford their apts (or worse sponsors who cannot sell co-ops or rent new apts and illegally rent the apts out short-term.)"

Same thing - when you rent an apartment in Paris or Rome, aren't you putting everyone in the building at risk, in exactly the same manner?

And:

"Sorry - but the safety and security of local residents trumps the desire of tourists for uber cheap housing.

And if one thinks there are too many laws in NYC (these providing for safety of hotel guests with fire laws and others preventing carrying of fire arms) one is free not to visit the city."

I think San Francisco is havang a similar problem as rents are so expensive there, it is becoming impossible for people with even decent jobs but starting out (but not super high tech salaries), to live there. The cost of even a 1 BR is astronomical.

I used to live in a place that introduced rent control while I was renting, and it really did negatively impact the ability of people to move around and the availability of apartments (this was Santa Monica, CA). I was not a fan. The problem was that no one would move much at that point, so the availability slowed down. Then, landlords started introducing backhanded ways of funneling them money to rent a place (key fees, they signed up with realtors who would then charge huge fees to tenants to get them a place, that got funneled through to the landlord). Also, you could evict someone if you could claim a relative was going to live there or something, so lots of people got evicted for short-term relatives which then freed the place up after a while to go to market rent, etc. You had to know someone to get a place, it was really terrible compared to when I first moved there when you would see ads, go look at a few, and decide.

Yes, it was becoming more expensive then, but it wasn't as bad as now with the tourists and expensive hotels. I understand the issue that without rent control, poor people can't afford to live there, but I also wonder -- since when is it a god-given right for someone to live in one of the most expensive beach communities in the US at below-market rates? LA was a little different in that there are plenty of other, lower cost areas to live that aren't that far away. Sure, you may have to commute to work, if you worked in SM and had a very low income (although most of the people benefiting from rent control weren't poor Mexicans as far as I could tell), but that's true everywhere. I have to commute 25 miles to work daily, that's life.

I'm not a fan of rent control from an economic viewpoint, I don't think it helped Boston out, either.

But those cities don;t have laws against it. It I were a renter there I would have the same concerns. But without regulation it's not possible to stop it.

Except in coops - this is one of the reasons we live in one - so we know and approve our neighbors - and random strangers just can't wander through the building. We do not allow short-term sublets and long-term (a year or more) sublets are allowed only with full financial and criminal investigation of the proposed sub tenants and approval of the board members.

"Please explain to me exactly why removing stabilization would cause landlords to build new affordable housing in Manhattan. " Agree with nytraveler here. I live in NYC and I do't see how destabilizing apts will all of a sudden encourage the landlord of said apt. to make it affordable!

As for giving "poor people" subsidies - many get that. It's the middle class that's suffering. The average person doesn't make $200k and up. And we aren't wealthy Asians or Russians or whoever, looking to invest in NYC real estate. We're looking to live in the city we've always lived in.

In NYC you can rent part of your apt. if you are living in it - physically there. But you can't make a profit by renting out your apt. (which you don't own) to someone when you are not there. If that is the agreement you signed when moving in, you should abide by it. And, anyway, it's the law! End of discussion.

Why speak of 200K incomes when "The median household income across New York City stands at $50,711, according to 2010-2012 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. That's down from $54,057 in inflation-adjusted dollars for the 2007-2009 period."?

One of the legal columns in the local edition of the NYT yesterday had a letter from a young man who rented his coop for a few days while he was out if town.

The board fined him $1000. No discussion, no protest, just added it to his monthly fee. Further discussion on the city rules against >30 day rentals if the owner is not present throughout. You can rent a room if the coop or condo docs allow, but you can't rent the whole apartment unless the owner is present.

I am not aware of ANY co-ops that allow this - and a close friend is part of a local group of co-ops that deal with common issues. I believe a few condos may. In my co-op we ended forcing the sale of one apartment whose owner sublet the apartment several times without board approval (we changed the outer locks on the building and the locks on her apartment so she couldn't do it any longer and the next "sublet" couldn't get in.)

In terms of rental apartments - almost all leases outlaw this practice and can be grounds for the landlord to evict the tenant from a rent stabilized apartment.

Michael I speak of 200k incomes because those are the people for whom apartments are now being built.

Ackislander - I read that article in the NY TImes. The writer never says whether or not he/she looked at his lease and whether or not it said he could do this. Thus, the answer to his query was, in part, does your building allow what you've done? Does it say that you can't do this?

In my co-op and, as nytravelr said, you have to get approval from the Board to rent out your apt. The sublettor is checked out.